Gentrification in Silicon Valley (Blog 8)

The idea of technology affecting our everyday lives is something at the core of our work in this class. While many consider the internet and technology to be a separated entity, but in fact it is deeply tied to the world we live in.

Recently we discussed Gentrification, the social practice of communities shifting towards higher wealth and social standing at the expense of those left behind in the dust. In fact, there is a real-world example of this happening very recently, one that exemplifies this idea of Gentrification.

Ok so maybe it's not the REAL google campus

Google is a very big company right now. They own YouTube, Android, and have their fingers in countless other projects and companies in the technological world. Most people have a pretty high opinion of Google. I mean, they gave us the most popular search engine in the world, one of the best mobile phone platforms out there, and some of the fastest internet speeds available right now. But in San Fransisco, Google is guilty of gentrification in regards to their new campus. Protesters actually stopped a Google Bus on it's way to the campus due to the shady methods in which Google had acquired and managed their new housing buildings. As a result of Google's acquisition of a new campus in San Fransisco, buildings in the surrounding region were seized (potentially illegally, according to some SF sources), and the community living in the areas evicted and cast out in favor of the new, wealthy Google residents. This kind of exodus of native people from their home in lieu of a newer, wealthier power is the kind of thing that Drori warns us about in regards to gentrification. The city of San Fransisco, pleased to let this new power come in and raise the wealth and social standing of the community turns a blind eye to the shady practices of the company, at the cost of the well-being of its existing residents.

Making Stuff Cheap (Blog 10)

America - Chinese Made

Who produces goods for the U.S. market and where?
As we observed in "Mardi Gras," the majority of goods sold in the US market are made pretty much anywhere but the US. Many of our products are made in China, or some other Asian country by workers likely being paid far too little for the work they are doing. 

Why do more and more U.S. companies manufacture and source products overseas, and why do U.S. consumers purchase these products? 
US companies manufacture products overseas primarily to cut costs. As we saw in "Mardi Gras," the owners of the bead company claimed that US workers were simply too costly to meet the demands that US consumers have. Because we've come to expect a certain low price on many products, we've created a market where US companies have little choice but to outsource labor to somewhere that is willing to be paid far less than they ought to. We buy these products mostly because we don't actually care about where they come from. As in the documentary, many people were obviously bothered by the facts of where their beads came from, but none of the party-goers actually cared enough to give more than a few moments thought to the issue.

What are the working conditions at foreign factories producing goods for the U.S. market?  
In a word, bad. Many factories in foreign countries are poorly maintained, allowing the workers only the comforts they absolutely need to make them stay employed. The bead factory in the documentary was reminiscent of a terrible summer camp to be honest, and the factory floor was obviously terrible for the workers' health.

Don't they look so happy?

Why do factory workers in foreign factories work under the current conditions?  
Most of the time it is because they have little choice. Especially in Asian countries, if you cannot make it in school you have pretty much no future in a decent-paying job, and often times families cannot afford to put more than one of their children through a good school. Many workers at these factories are teens who were either fed up with school life and wanting to work, or come from poor families who were unable to put them through school for one reason or another. Additionally, these foreign factories are, surprisingly, a good source of employment for these workers, who's prospects otherwise would be similar or even more dim.

What are the economic and social impacts of globalization?

As stated before, economically speaking, globalization and the expectations of Western consumers has engaged in sort of a viscous cycle. Companies are unable to turn to Western workers because of production costs, and consumers won't allow the price hike that would come along with those production costs. As a result as well, Western money that probably should be going to their own countries is being sent overseas to workers who are willing to do the labor at a cheaper price.

  

Embodiment - Bodies in Cyberspace (Blog 5)

One of the biggest draws of the internet is also one of its biggest concerns, and that is the supposed erasure of self online. When you log onto the internet, nobody can see you, and as such, we all take on a kind of internet body when we go online. However, this idea can lead to many difficulties, especially for people of color.

In a way, the internet is very much a vehicle of pop culture. Take the image to the left. Memes like this are one of the most common things on the internet, because they're popular. Online, popular content is king, and shapes the way we view content, as well as people. Especially in Western society, we consider white males to be the largest demographic. Since the west is the region of the world that tends to have the largest user base on the internet, we allow our preconceptions of the typical race and gender of Western citizens to shape our embodiment of the online self. But as I said before, pop culture also plays into this image. In Marez's article on Star Wars, we see how George Lucas' depiction of Tatooine as a farming region populated purely by whites counters the racial struggles being experienced at the time by Cesar Chavez and United Farm Workers. While it may not have been Lucas' intention, his depiction of farm workers as white in popular culture shifted the embodiment of farm labor to a white domination, in much the same was as our preconceptions of race and gender in internet-using countries subconsciously affects our embodiment of the online self.

Because of these preconceptions, we see the embodiment of the internet user as a white male, which causes problems online for both people of color as well as women. In Hawthorn's essay, he argues against the male-dominated internet culture that allows exploitation of women and children, claiming that we cannot allow our internet to be dominated by these kinds of male-born creations. In a way, the internet is very much a vehicle of human vice. Because we consider everyone online to be the same, to be a faceless being, we allow our vices to get away from us, hiding behind the veil of anonymity. The exploitation of women also shows how we view the balance of power in society. Because the internet can be viewed as an unfiltered look into the true makeup of society, the fact that it is considered to be completely male-dominant betrays the supposition that men hold all the power in society, and women are meant to be subservient.

Blog 4 - The World in WWW

In the digital age, globalization is a word that is often tossed around, in a wide variety of cases. In general, we understand globalization to be a force that slowly spreads ideas around the world to the benefit of everyone, but is there more to it than that? After our readings and the viewing of the "Office Tigers" documentary, I would say so.

Oh, globalization

"Office Tigers" takes a look at the globalization of a tech support company, but instead paints us a picture of a new wave of imperialism. In the documentary, it was plain to see that, much like the colonization of old, white man came to a foreign land and taught the locals to do their bidding. While not as extreme an example, the operation of the company Office Tiger is shockingly similar to this ancient practice. Engaging the ideas brought up by Shome in his article, Office Tiger is an example of Asian outsourcing, a practice becoming all too common in the technologically driven world.

The issues of Shome's proposed new kind of racial disconnect is apparent in the documentary as Indian workers are required to cater specifically to western needs and constructs, much as the call centers in Shome's research must deal with the issue of white pandering and aural discrimination. In a way, all outsourcing causes this problem of racial disconnect and dissatisfaction, as western companies turn to Asia for cheaper labor, but western consumers expect western support.

Another issue evident in this key example of outsourcing is the problems that arise from the digital divide. Though India is in no way poor, the imperialistic companies introduce new technologies that the Asian workers are ill equipped to deal with, further complicating the issues of racial and locational disconnection.